With the warmer weather now upon us, our farmers are preparing for a long, tough summer.

Stories of widespread crop failure, or yields that came in well below expectation, abound in rural communities across the State.

In some regions, farmers are experiencing their sixth, seventh - even eighth - consecutive year of drought conditions.

The circumstances are testing the most resilient of our farming sector - and it is important that the rest of the State appreciates just how serious their situation is.

It is vital at a time like this that farmers continue to take advantage of the support services currently available, particularly for mental health.

Our team of drought support workers continue to work one-on-one with those families feeling the pressure, and are well placed to refer people to other support networks such as rural financial counsellors and health workers.

To date, the State Government has committed about $350 million in assistance - and we won’t stop there.

Essential support programs such as transport subsidies remain in place and will do so for as long as our farming sector needs them.

A wide range of drought assistance measures can be found at www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/drought or call the hotline on 1800 814 647.

Promising effort on EI

Ongoing efforts in the equine influenza campaign are starting to show some great results, with indications that progressively more zones in the State will change status from a high to a lower risk in coming weeks.

Our strategies of movement restrictions, zoning and vaccination are working.

We have been able to lower the risk of infection in several areas in NSW from red to amber, and in some cases, from amber to green.

At the time of going to press, Mudgee, Temora, Dunedoo, Berry and Wauchope had moved out of the red zone into amber, and I was confident we would see more of these positive changes.

I must stress that it could take just one person dropping their standard of disinfection to create a fresh outbreak, that would put us back to square one in the new hotspot.

Extensive testing of horses and investigations are conducted by Department of Primary Industries and their support staff within districts to enable them to achieve ‘proof of freedom’ status.

Our aim is to progressively downgrade the risk in infected areas as the virus burns out, freeing up some movement restrictions, easing disinfection requirements and progressively enabling horse events to resume.

I want to thank all those staff who are working seven days a week in their tireless efforts to get on top of the horse flu breakout, and the horse owners and all horse industry groups that continue to be patient and work with us.